Step Down, Par: Strib Guild Votes 110-to-2 to Urge Publisher’s Resignation

After an hour of discussion Tuesday afternoon, assembled members of the Star Tribune’s unit of the Minnesota Newspaper Guild voted overwhelmingly to urge publisher Par Ridder to resign. By a margin of 110 to 2, members approved the following resolution, which will be included in a letter to be sent to Ridder on Wednesday:

“We, the journalists of the Star Tribune, call on Par Ridder to resign as publisher. We believe the unethical actions to which he admitted in court have damaged the Star Tribune’s credibility and integrity and undermined our ability to hold public figures accountable for their actions. For the good of the Star Tribune and the community it serves, we believe he should step down.”

Prior to the meeting, Star Tribune chairman Chris Harte had already stated that the Guild’s vote won’t make a lick of difference. “The Guild does not get to decide who is publisher of the Star Tribune,” he said in a prepared statement.

Chris Serres, a reporter at the paper and unit officer with the Guild, said the idea to call for Ridder’s resignation came from the union’s rank-and-file, not from Guild leadership. “Things with the Guild don’t happen the way they do with the company,” he said. “They rise up organically. They don’t come down from above like with the company. It’s messy, but there’s a certain beauty to it.”

He said the vote came after an hourlong discussion on its merits and wording. One member asked if the resolution was a good strategy. Serres paraphrased, “Are we just poking the bear?”

In the end, the verdict was resounding. At what Serres said was an unusually well-attended meeting, more than a third of the Guild’s 320-person membership showed up to “make a statement on principle.” Serres said most Guild members don’t expect Ridder will step down.

“Many members want to separate themselves from this publisher on moral and ethical grounds, and to tell the public that we hold [management] to the same standards of ethical behavior that we hold ourselves and that we hold other public figures,” he said. “Beyond that, we do want readers and the public to know we share their concerns.”